coronationstreetfandomcom-20200215-history
User talk:Notdoppler
Hello and welcome to Corriepedia! All assistance is welcome! You have made several changes recently where you have moved Jed Stone from being a regular cast member to being guest cast. Either myself or David_the_Wavid has moved him back again. Please note that the convention we have used in creating the 2000+ episodes to date on this site is that once a regular cast member, then ALWAYS a regular cast member - almost a badge of honour, if you like. Thus Sheila Crossley, appearing in just four episodes in 1974 and appearing for the first time since 1969 was credited as a regular cast member. Please could you stick to the same rule and ensure consistency. Thank you.--Jtomlin1uk 06:17, 26 August 2008 (UTC) this page might also be of interest. David 08:37, 27 August 2008 (UTC) Profile pages Please could I ask you to take note of a few things on the profile pages that you're creating? I realise that they are being copied from Wikipedia - which is alright in itself - but we don't follow all of their conventions and need several adjustments to the text: 1) Please can you delete lines such as "XXX is a fictional character in the ITV soap Coronation Street". As this is a site purely about the programme such a definition is not required. In addition, links have been left in such as "fictional character" and while fine for Wikipedia, I cannot see us ever creating such a page here. Some delinking is required. 2) Dates should also be in the UK style of 2nd February, 3rd March etc, not February 2, March 3, etc and the first instance of this on a page of such a date should always be linked. 3) Tricky one this - beware where our links are different to wikipedia. We use "Rovers Return Inn" as a full link whereas Wikipedia uses just "Rovers Return". Such links need changing - watch out for ones on Wikipedia such as "Mike Baldwin (fictional character)" - we obviously just use "Mike Baldwin". 4) Please remember to add at least one category and a defaultsort. Appearance of a character in just a few episodes get a category such as "Category:2007 minor character" whereas others will be "Category:Coronation Street characters" - you'll have to use your judgement as to which is which! Sorry to go on - any questions, please ask! John--Jtomlin1uk 10:53, 28 August 2008 (UTC) :I'm also appreciative of your edits, these character pages have been long overdue. One thing you should be aware is that all the behind the scenes material in the character articles should be under its own section in the page, the rest being in-universe information, as if the character is real. The manual of style I linked to above gives more information about this. This isn't urgent, but if you're leaving it the way it is, it might be better if you would add one of the cleanup templates to the page. Thanks. David 11:49, 28 August 2008 (UTC) Images RE:your message. For the old episodes, I usually get the images from the DVDs, except publicity images which can usually be found online. Newer episodes I usually screengrab from the ITV site - the latest episodes directly from the ITV catchup. The various video and picture galleries on the ITV site are also useful. I've been going over the most recent few episode articles you've written for the site, I'm very grateful that somebody is else is choosing to tackle them as I've been doing them since the site started, they're mostly fine except for the cast lists, which occasionally omit someone. The episodes available on ITV catchup are a godsend not only for the images but the ending credits give us the cast list directly, at least for the single episodes - for double episodes there is only one cast list so other means need to be used to get two separate cast lists. Difficult sometimes! David 14:32, 28 August 2008 (UTC) Users Hi, just alerting you to the existence of this page, the list of users, if you want to add yourself to the list. Congratulations on bagging the 4000th article! David 19:05, 28 August 2008 (UTC) Cast I suppose there's no definite way, but my rule of thumb is an actor is in the regular cast if their character appears outside of a storyline. If they're a regular cast member, the storyline they leave in is different from the one they joined in. Quite hard to define actually, it's tempting to say just someone who lives in the street but some don't. Is there a specific example you've got in mind? David 19:41, 28 August 2008 (UTC) :There are a few ways to get a cast list. The most direct way is to watch the episodes online, that way you can pause to make a note of the actor names at the end credits. The cast list also goes up on IMDB, but it usually takes a while. Possibly TV magazines also give cast lists, but I don't buy any so I don't know for sure. David 10:42, 6 September 2008 (UTC) Episode pages Thanks for handling the new episode pages, I'll try and get those guest star names. David 16:22, 7 September 2008 (UTC) Character infoboxes Hi there, I've been taking a look at your articles, just a few things to note about them. Major characters have the 'main character' infobox. Recurring characters have the 'individual' infobox. One-time only characters don't have an infobox, as usually there won't be enough content on the page to justify it. The Nick Neeson article merge is fine, but you might want to consider simplfying the appearances list by having more than one column, like in this page. David 18:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC) RE:Alert and suggestions I'll check those recent episode articles tomorrow, circumstances permitting. I hope to write the October 2007 articles on Monday, recently I've been writing the articles on the original characters and it's taken up a lot of my time. I'm trying to get a lot done before I go back to uni, not much time left! David 21:23, 13 September 2008 (UTC) New episodes Thanks for taking the new episodes off my hands! I haven't checked your recent ones, but they seem okay. The main thing that must be absolutely correct is the cast list, as it takes the longest to correct if its wrong. It's mainly a convenience though, as you might have guessed there's no way to see the earlier episodes unless they've been commercially released (or unless you work for Granada TV, I guess) so there's precious little information obtainable from them. Will I keep the 'list of appearances' pages updated? I'm happy to do so, it doesn't take long. David 09:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC) :2007 episodes - I use the official synopsis obtainable from various sites (I use digital spy), images from ITV site and cast lists from IMDB. TV.com is also useful, but contains only sketchy information. David 14:46, 17 September 2008 (UTC) Thanks for the warning. This will be my first experience of dealing with a disruptive user, I'm quite excited. About the images from the ITV site, you can find them using the search function at the top right of their site, just type in the date of the episode - ITV don't seem to take them down, they're just difficult to find. The pictures from the scene-by-scene sections are fine, but I prefer the higher-resolution pics from the 'pictures of the week' sections. For IMDB, you just have to know you've got the right date. David 20:41, 19 September 2008 (UTC) RE: Impressive! Ahhh, thanks a bunch for changing that for me! :) Chiidatbe 17:50, 23 September 2008 (UTC) Character articles Thanks for your comment about the Elsie Tanner article! For character articles I usually start off with what's on Wikipedia (which in most cases is not very much) and the corrie.net character page, which is usually just a set of dry facts, then plunder through the episode synopses from the years they were in it for details of the storylines they had. Once I've got all the information, I structure most of it into the biography section, write a personality section if its someone who was in it for a while and put all remaining facts into other sections, plus any behind the scenes information I've learned. The trouble with Wikipedia, especially for characters like Ken and Deirdre, who've been in it for a while, they're heavy on recent events, some of which are trivial in the character's overall history compared with major events from their early years in the programme which barely get mentioned. Still, they go into a lot of detail for the newer characters - probably a little too much detail, at least for the biography section. About the Coronation Street history page, well to be honest it's quite daunting and I might take it a bit at a time. I've not even properly written the main page on the show. A few questions I've been wondering, is it just recent Corrie you've seen? Do you own any of the Network DVD boxsets (1960s, 1970s, 1980s)? David 12:03, 24 September 2008 (UTC) :They're DVD screengrabs. David 12:57, 24 September 2008 (UTC) Peter Hello there. You either created a page today called just "Peter" or redirected it to the page for Peter Barlow. Please be VERY careful doing things like this in future as single names have a habit of being used on more than one occasion in the programme and a redirect should not be used if it can be helped. In this instance such a redirect has caused a link to be made for a character called Peter (with no surname) played by Jon Finch in 1967. I've delinked the relevant entries now. Thank you.--Jtomlin1uk 20:51, 24 September 2008 (UTC) New episodes I'm afraid noting characters down as they appear on-screen is what I did, I couldn't think of anything other way to get it done. David 18:52, 25 September 2008 (UTC) Vandalism Hi there! Yeah, I saw his "message" and couldn't be bothered changing it - some people are amazingly tiresome.--Jtomlin1uk 19:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC) :Your disambiguation pages though are excellent. Really good for mopping up mis-directs.--Jtomlin1uk 19:41, 26 September 2008 (UTC) Images One source of images is the CSVU site. (Just Google the term CSVU - once on there click on "Visual Updates" on the grey bar on the left and you'll see images for Canada, Australia and New Zealand for episodes showing there about now but shown up to a couple of years back in the UK. The pages are refreshed every week and older pages ARE deleted so it might be worth saving a load now.--Jtomlin1uk 15:46, 29 September 2008 (UTC) New episode articles Don't worry about it, I'm happy to resume the new episode articles. They're a right pain, aren't they? Way too time consuming for their own good. David 16:14, 6 October 2008 (UTC) :I haven't forgotten them, I prefer to do a whole week's worth of episodes at the same time, so I can concentrate on other articles on other days. David 19:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC) Notes I'd rather the notes about Dave Smith were left. I know that he's counted as a guest member of the cast but sometimes appearances can be so far apart that first and last appearances are of interest. Good examples are Nelly Harvey and Beattie Pearson. Thanks. --Jtomlin1uk 15:48, 7 October 2008 (UTC) :Very, very difficult to decide who is a guest star and who isn't sometimes. Policeman and the like are easy but it gets more difficult to say when looking at people like Dave Smith or Sandra Stubbs. I would say (1) Anyone who does about a year or more continuously on the show at any time in their period with the programme is a regular. (2) Anyone who lived as the main residents in a house on the street for a prolonged period is a regular (the Claytons in 1985, for example) (3) Any character who is supposed to be continuous, even if they are played by different actors (e.g. Tracy Barlow but NOT Patricia Cutts who played Blanche for two episodes in 1974 because someone who appeared just twice cannot, by definition be a regular - the same with May Hardman in 1960 - she's established as a long-term resident of the street in Episode 2, appears in Episode 3 and is dead by Episode 7, so common sense (perhaps gut instinct?) tells me she cannot be called a regular.) (4) Anyone who you know was on a long-term contract with the programme. Reginald Marsh wasn't, as far as I know, so he is a guest. If you have any debate with a particular character now or on-going, address it in the forum and we'll see what the consensus is.--Jtomlin1uk 17:48, 7 October 2008 (UTC) How come notes on first/last appearances of recurring characters are being removed from episode pages anyway? David 18:16, 7 October 2008 (UTC) :It's even more difficult to gauge who is a guest star or a regular with newer episodes than it is with old ones. Imagine if we were doing this website back in 1971. A character appears in a few episodes called Ivy Tilsley who appears to be a guest and she's put down as such. As the years go by she starts to appear more and more regularly and suddenly, at the start of 1979, she moves into No.5 and, if there was any doubt previously, she is now definately a regular. There are only two ways round this: (1) Unless press publicity makes it clear that a new character is a regular (e.g. the Mortons) then everyone is a guest and they stay as such until its clear they're here to stay and older episode listings simply reflect what they were thought to be at the time. (2) Episodes are constantly revised as time goes on, swapping characters from guest to regular (or back again) which I see you have been doing. Although a thankless task, I favour the latter. As regards the example you have quoted, you need to ask yourself if the person concerned looks as if they have a part which seemed "guestish" but now looks regular (as per Roger Styles) and act accordingly but running the risk of having to change them back in a few weeks if the storyline makes a sudden about-turn.--Jtomlin1uk 15:05, 8 October 2008 (UTC) Compliments Thanks for the message and complments to you to for the enthusiam you've showed since joining the site! JohnJtomlin1uk 19:17, 9 October 2008 (UTC) characters template Yes! I've been wanting to create templates like these for a while but to be honest I don't know how (I was fairly new to wiki editing when I started Corriepedia). Will they be separated though or will they all appear on character pages? Like on the Annie Walker page will the template for original characters only be on it, or will the rest of them which don't apply to her, because it is fairly bulky otherwise. Not so sure about the 'deaths' and 'longest running characters' bits, are you taking these from the 'list of....' pages? I don't think they're necessary for templates. Rovers staff definitely though, but I think on that the characters should be listed owner first (Steve), then landlady (Liz), then bar staff. I also think the original/current characters should be grouped together by family, so individual names are easier to find. But otherwise, thanks for making it! David 21:37, 11 October 2008 (UTC) :Hi, unless there are any objections I'm going to separate the template. David 09:07, 12 October 2008 (UTC) Help needed Thanks for the message. Somewhat ironically one the reasons that I've slowed down a little is that there is more info for 1989 and a couple of the other years than available previously. Bit parts are listed on the "Corrie" site for 1989 to circa 1995 and I'm carefully reading each synopsis to make sure that I'm getting the right info and noting bit part appearances that might not always be clear e.g. Christine Carter in the cafe scenes. Another reason for the temporary slowdown is that I reached about 1989 in my researches with back issues of TV Times so have had to make several trips recently to the British Library to stock up on info, hence my comparitive lack of updates yesterday. I'd rather you carried on working backwards from 2007 as you do get in a rhythm when putting episode updates on and I wouldn't want to spoil that.--Jtomlin1uk 17:54, 12 October 2008 (UTC) Character status I'd say they're both regulars, they both appear quite often now. David 09:45, 21 October 2008 (UTC) Episodes That's fine. I've worked out that we should complete the episodes about Feb/Mar next year isn't bad going for some 7000 episodes!--Jtomlin1uk 16:41, 28 October 2008 (UTC)